Hdd failure

[inkydigit]

My mac went awol a lot over last week; weird behaviour - freezes, bbod- grey screen of agony, white screen of anguish - a total nightmare !! Some times Hdd would just vanish.... Eventually managed some repairs in disk utility and have been able to invoke a restore From time machine... Fingers crossed for next few hours... So only gonna have intermittent web access
Cheers
J

[yossam]

Hope you have a spare Hdd and a recent backup. 

[Dune]

Nightmare indeed, crossing my fingers for my setup, which still behaves nicely. That's the problem with hdd; ploep, gone. No warning sounds/signals. I do hope you have enough recent backup!

[archonforest]

U can also take your hdd to a friend and hook it up to save data.
Otherwise there are softwares around that can monitor HDD health and spot bad sectors for example. If bad sectors are showing up then the software can close them so no more data will be written there and thus cannot create problems in the future. Some of these  programs even can fix bad sectors. But bottom line if bad sectors are showing up u better back up immediately and get a replacement HDD just in case. Also if a HDD gets some bad sectors where the boot sequence is sitting it can create lots of problems. PC will not boot for example but you can still save up your data if u take it to someone. Acronis Disk Director or similar name can even create a new boot sector and close the dead one.

[inkydigit]

Update - not so good... Repaired Hdd with disk utility in recovery boot mode...Good start  I thought.....
Disk utility reports all ok
So I pick restore from TimeMachine.... (Backs up continuously)
Left it running to erase and restore overnight .... Wake up check Mac... Back to welcome screen and options to restore re install or disk utility.... Checked disk utility.... No Hdd visible!!!!
.... A few other options include running the os on another external drive... Try to migrate ..... Not too sure yet ....
Nightmare continues... Determined to win though
Cheers
J

[archonforest]

Man u playin with fire there
In a situation like yours I would do this:
1. If the hdd shows up save all data u can on dvds or other hdd right away. Or take it to a frien as I said before. If all saved then play with the sick one if u want but just wasting time. I would just reformat the whole puppy.

2. If hdd just not showing up then go to a friend even if he got a PC and save if u can. Then format.

3. Just in case I would chk all the cables that goes to the hdd. The devil never sleeps.

[jaf]

I purchased a usb hhd docking station a few years ago. similar to this: http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=usb+hdd+dock&tag=mh0b-20&index=aps&hvadid=3527187507&ref=pd_sl_2nlr49r4lm_e

Of course you need a working OS.

..... and like archonforest said check all cables.  I've also had bad experiences with a couple hard drives that turned out to be bad (cheap) SATA cables.